Camping for beginners | Ep03 | How to choose a sleeping pad, mat or matress

hello guys and welcome to episode three of camping for beginners in this episode we're looking at sleeping pads and mats I'm gonna be talking about most of things that you might want to consider when it comes to how to choose a sleeping mat or sleeping pad fate with you and your backpack in or your camping trips we're gonna look at things like pack size and weight comfort and reliability how much insulation that they're going to give you from your cold and how much they're going to hammer your pocket when it comes to cost before I crack on with it you've already got a sleeping mat or sleeping pad and please let me know which one you've got in the comments below I'd be interested to know what everyone else is using especially if you've got any horror stories or any good feedback when it comes to using these kind of products on your camping trips if you're new to the channel you might want to start with Episode one of this series which I'll link in the corner somewhere anyway time to crack on with it so before going to all of the details I'll show you my current selection of sleeping pads and mats starting with the smallest which is the exped hyper light and what the therm-a-rest NeoAir x light I believe this is a Highlander foil blanket it's just adds a little bit of extra insulation to the other pads and I've got the Big Agnes third-degree closed-cell foam mat and finally this is the therm-a-rest zed light Sol Sol which is another closed-cell foam mat so choosing the correct sleeping pad or mat can make a massive difference to your camping experience it can be the difference between a nice cozy warm night and a freezing cold night or a nice comfortable sleep or having rocks or bumpy ground keeping you awake at night so as you can see here sleeping pads and mats come in all different shapes and sizes and usually they come in three types of construction they're either a closed cell foam mat a self inflating sleeping pad or an inflatable air mattress so the first time we're going to take a look at is the closed cell foam mat so the closed cell foam mat is the type of Mac that we all grew up with in the Boy Scouts or when we did a Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme they're very bulky but they're also very lightweight they're usually constructed by bonding two pieces of closed cell foam together and a lot of these kind of foam mats also have a reflective coating on them to help improve insulation a lot of them also have these little pockets in them where you sleeping bag can trap air in it and that can also add to the insulation properties so the difference between closed cell foam and open cell foam is that the closed cell foam doesn't allow any sort of water to absorb into it to penetrate the pad so if you imagine an open cell foam is like a sponge so that would absorb lots of moisture whereas this will actually keep the moisture and the water out so as you can see this kind of pad it's very bulky so it tends to be strapped to the outside of your pack but it's also pretty much indestructible so if you wanted to you could give it a little bit of a stab and it's not going to really damage it too much so because you can't really puncture this type of mat it makes it the most reliable type of sleeping mat that you can buy they're also incredibly easy to set up basically you can just lay it out flat and that's it job done you can see where this one's had a little bit of damage but it doesn't affect the performance at all but the main problem with this kind of sleeping mat is its lack of comfort so as you can see it's not very thick at all and if you're a side sleeper especially this might not be the best choice of sleeping mat for you because you can still feel all of the lumps and bumps from the ground underneath so this particular type of foam mat is a folding mat so it concertinas up to make a reasonably compact bit of kit which you can strap to the back of your pack but a lot of closed cell foam mats just roll up like this particular one from Big Agnes this one also has little air pockets to try and trap in insulation and it also has a ridge bottom which is spongy to help with the added comfort again these aren't the most comfortable types of sleeping mat but they are very durable and they're usually the cheapest type you can buy you can get a foam mat from as little as five pounds but you do tend to pay a little bit more for some other branded stuff with a little bit more technology thing this one is about thirty pounds and this was about 22 pounds so the next type of sleeping pad we're going to talk about is the self inflating pad so the self inflating pad has a little bit more modern technology than the closed cell foam mats it's constructed of an open cell foam so like a sponge which is sandwiched between an airtight so when you open the valve the air rushes in and the foam expands and it basically does what it says on the tin it inflates the pad for the majority by itself so I don't actually own a self inflating pad himself anymore but I have owned several of them including the British army version and the ALP kit arrow 180 so some of the more expensive self inflating pads have special insulation inside them which allows you to sleep down to colder temperatures self inflating pads are smaller than the closed cell foam pads but they are still bulkier than the more modern sleeping air pads so once you've allowed one of these pads to self inflate it usually takes a few breaths afterwards to inflate it fully and then seal the valve and it's ready to sleep on so because a self inflating pad is a mixture of air and foam it makes it more comfortable than a closed cell foam pad however because it does require an airtight enclosure around the foam it does make it susceptible to punctures so it's nowhere near as reliable as a closed cell foam mat but self inflating pads aren't a huge amount more comfortable than these they tend to be only around an inch thick unless you go really bulky with the pack size one thing to remember with a self inflating pad is you're better off not storing them compressed so when you get home after you've been on your camp release the valve let the air fill up and then store it somewhere in its self inflated state so this prolongs the life of the open cell foam and the life of your sleeping pad so the last type of sleeping pad we're going to talk about is an air mattress as you can see these are incredibly small and they're also lightweight if you compare the size of the exped Hyperlite to that of the therm-a-rest said like it's an insane amount of volume difference that being said this is actually probably a little bit lighter than this and it's never going to burst so if comfort is not your priority I definitely look at something like this so the main advantages for me for air mattress is that they're incredibly lightweight the pack size is virtually nothing and there's so much more comfortable than the other types of mat but these type of pads definitely require more work they need inflating so there's a number of different ways and how you can inflate these pads the main method that most people use is just to open the valve and to blow in it now and I pad this side it normally takes about 30 good breaths to inflate it so one of the issues that I've had with actually blowing into the pad I'll show you a little bit later with this pad is that adding moisture from your breath adds moisture inside your pad so this can lead to a buildup of mold over time so there are a number of solutions for not getting moisture anywhere bad so first one we show you is a pump sack inflator this is basically a large dry bag this particular one from thermos got hole in it which fits over your valve and your sleeping pad and they get some air into the dry bag everyone needs a seal the valve so that took four and our bags I think to fully inflate as you can see it's not inflated incredibly firmly so if you wanted to add a little bit more just put one breath in but that's drastically reduce the amount of moisture that's gone in there so thermistor also supply a mini electric pump which you can use to inflate the bud takes about five or ten minutes we can just plug it in and leave it that does require it having batteries though and in cold weather that can be a little bit unreliable so for that reason most of the time I take a pump sack this type of pile inflate slightly differently that's a little plug and the pump sack just clips straight into the sleeping bag so one bonus about this pad it's got a one-way valve so when you remove the pump sack none of the air escapes so this is what I wanted to show you earlier about putting moisture inside your pad you may be able to see lots of little black dots so they are mold that's inside the pad see a little bit better in the sunlight so another thing you might wish to consider is the baffles so in the exped they go down the length of the pad yet on the therm-a-rest they go horizontally I actually find the vertical baffles much more comfortable that's mainly because it stops me from rolling off the pad in the middle so as you can see an air mattress is much thicker this makes it incredibly comfortable but although there may be comfortable some of them can be quite noisy as well especially the firmer it sounds like you're sleeping on a bag of crisps you must remember that not all air mattresses are equal some of the cheaper ones literally are that they're just a mattress that stores air inside but these two in particular have insulation which is built into them which stops you getting cold at night some of the cheaper air mattresses offer no insulation whatsoever so therefore no matter what your sleeping bag is you're still probably going to end up with a cold night in the colder months so although these mattresses incredibly comfortable they're also very vulnerable when it comes to punctures a few years back air mattresses are not very reliable but some of the materials now are much better and the cases where people have done things like that Appalachian Trail and they've slept for hundreds of nights without any sort of problems on something like a thermal rest but that doesn't mean that you won't get punctures so it's important that you always take the repair kit with you most mattresses come with a repair kit supplied usually consists of a patch of material and a little bit of glue this one also has instructions in it too now going to talk a little bit about insulation so the whole point of having a sleeping mat or a pad so is to stop you losing body heat to the ground below so if you were to go to sleep directly on the ground you will start to feel the cold even in the warm months the mat or the pad is designed to to give her a layer of insulation to stop your body heat transferring down to the ground below so when it comes to sleeping mats and pads the gauge that they use for measuring how well insulated it is it's called an r-value so the way that our values work is in a linear format so basically something that has an r-value of four will have twice the insulation of something that has an r-value of two if that makes sense so recently in 2020 they brought in some new guidelines when it comes to measuring our values it used to be the case that manufacturers could just simply slap an r-value on the packaging and say that the product would go down to a certain temperature but now in order to do that they've got to demonstrate and I've testing done to ensure that the r-value is correct so you get different values for different sleeping pads and mats the r-value of annia where x-lite is four point two whereas the r-value of this satellite is only two so therefore you'll get just over twice as much insulation from the ground below using the X light over the Zed light there are websites that you can go on to get information on what our value translate to roughly in temperature the X light goes down to about minus six degrees Celsius which I can confirm is pretty accurate and I find that does me for most of the time in the UK there is something you can do however is to increase the r-value of your sleeping pad is to double them up so put in your air mattress on top of a closed sole mat will make a big difference in the overall insulation value every sleeping system so as you may have seen in one of my earlier videos I did have a little bit of a mishap with their NeoAir X line so one of the battles burst out a little bit it didn't deflate but it did have a bald you inside the air mattress he's made it uncomfortable for the night so it did rock my confidence a little bit in air mattresses so especially in cold weather if you were to lose the inflation in this permanently you're gonna have a very cold night so now start taking a closed cell foam mat with me as well so not only does it give me extra insulation but it gives me peace of mind that if the air mattress does let me down for any reason I have got to back up and I'm not going to be laid directly on cold ground so one other thing to bear in mind with an air mattress they do state an r-value it's for when their the pad is completely inflated sometimes I like to let a little bit of air out of the mattress which makes it a little less firm and more comfortable however that will reduce the r-value slightly I'm not sure what the percentage will be but please bear that in mind I'm now going to talk a little bit about their variety in costs when it comes to sleeping pad soon and mats you can pay huge amounts of cash especially for the more modern air mattresses so good quality air mattresses can range from anywhere up to 50 pounds to 200 pounds which is a huge investment when it comes to something you're just gonna use when you're camping so if you're somebody it's not gonna go camping very often I won't recommend that you spend the money on something like an X bed or a thermos because you're just not gonna get good value for money you much better off buying a cheap clothes cell phone mat and then adding a cheap air mattress to it and to give you that little bit of extra comfort however if you're the sort of person that takes you camping a little bit more seriously you go out regular there you go some quite remote places where it can get chilly and it's probably going to be a good investment to get something a little bit more professional but if you can live without comfort for a little while you can't go wrong with just a closed cell foam where it's cheapest chips and it will last you forever so in summary when it comes to choosing a sleeping pad or mat it's all about prioritizing your needs as we've already discussed there's lots of things to consider such as comfort pack size weight the insulation value and obviously how much it costs I do believe if you're going to take your campaign seriously then it would be a wise move to invest in something there is a little bit more professional but if you're only going out once in a blue moon I wouldn't bother shelling out for something that's gonna cost you a hundred pound just to make one night comfortable for the more budget-friendly I would consider doubling up when it comes to a cheap air mattress and a closed cell foam mat you can always supplement it with something like this five pound Highlander lightweight foil mat which will add a little bit more warmth to this food system one important thing to bear in mind is that your sleeping pad is just part of your sleeping system if you haven't got a sleeping bag that isn't up to the job and your sleeping pad can only do so much and vice versa if you've got a really good sleeping bag yet you haven't got any insulation from the ground the temperature rating of your sleeping bag will be drastically reduced please let me know in the comments below what kind of sleeping pad you use I'm especially interested if anyone's used to sea2summit pads as I've heard that they're incredibly comfortable so if you're interested in the next episode in the series where I'll be looking at sleeping bags and make sure to hit the subscribe button and ding that Bell and that way you'll be notified when the next video is released I hope you found the video useful if you've got any questions at all drop them in the comments below and I'll try and answer them as quickly as possible

Channel: Paul Messner

Views: 177,457

Keywords: camping for beginners, camping for beginners uk, backpack camping for beginners, solo camping for beginners, what to take camping for beginners, wild camping for beginners, wild camping for beginners uk, backpacking for beginners, backpacking gear for beginners, camping gear for beginners, camping, camping gear, camping guide, camping hacks, camping tips, car camping, how to go camping, sleeping pad for camping, wild camping, backpacking, outdoors, sleeping mat, sleeping pad

Id: RY23hRGx8Q8

Length: 17min 3sec (1023 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 28 2020